Former Eidos Montreal Boss Quits Over "Lack of Courage" at Square Enix

[KingdomFantasyXIII]

Wow... this is the last thing Squenix needs right now. Eidos have been the one studio they could really count on to keep the money rolling in. Losing their former director like this can only mean bad things...

Hopefully, Square-Enix will recognize that they need this guy and they'll bring him back and let him do his job.

Allow me some speculation but it may have gone something like:

D'Astous: Alright, so we need to get the budgets under control everywhere. We sold all the copies but didn't make money
Squeenix: It's all the western markets' fault. Nothing to do with unmitigated disasters from the Final Fantasy front
D'Astous: They love our games, if we keep it up but just be smart about-
Squeenix: Let me just stop you right there, the western markets didn't buy 100 million copies of Tomb Raider so you didn't make the forecast. Also FFXIV is awesome
D'Astous: Moving on, the mobile division seems to have picked up a reputation for being 'evil incarnate' with terrible games
Squeenix: Let's put SecuROM on our FFVII release!
D'Astous: ...

Too bad. You can't deny that his direction worked very well on the last DX:HR. And since that was a successful game, you would think they would look at games that were successful versus games that were not successful and want to keep the people responsible for the successful bits around. I have lost a lot of respect for Square Enix over the last few years. They are simply making mistake after mistake and they amplify those mistakes with each project, then they wonder why games are losing money.

Maybe this is the begining of the end. Maybe SE will go under and then Mistwalker can buy the Final Fantasy licence.



A guy can dream right?

Actually, there is a different story being sung and this came out today as well:

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/final-fantasy-reborn/0119016

?We have remade everything. We can say with confidence that this is a completely new game. The original Final Fantasy XIV was a shock to a lot of fans. It did a lot of damage and we lost a lot of our users? trust. To regain that trust we need to do something that takes time. We have to show them that we really mean it when we say we?re sorry.?

It humbled us a lot,? says Yoshida. ?At the time of the first game, there was this feeling that we could do no wrong. And there wasn?t really a communication with the players, we just did what we thought was great and didn?t listen to the fans.
?In the two and a half years since I joined the project, I have made it a point to listen and make a game that players want. And this stance has not just transformed Final Fantasy XIV, it has transformed the entire company.

?Square Enix now has these radio and TV shows to speak to fans. That mistake we made two and a half years ago has woken up the company.?
It?s not just about listening to the fans, the Final Fantasy team are now listening to each other, too.

?We do feel it is a rebirth for the Final Fantasy series,? says Yoshida. ?Each game in the series up until now has been made by a different team that operated independently. We?ve now made it a company motto that we will get together and move to the future as one entity. That?s why you see Final Fantasy XIII, XIV and XV pushing forward as one.

?We still have separate teams working on these games, but the big difference here is that the leaders of these teams are working together, communicating with each other.?

 

[RicoADF]

Wow. They had an interview with this guy in Edge- in his role as head of Eidos Montreal- just this month. That's quite the turn-around... And bodes ill.

One of the things he had said in the interview was that the upper management had done a pretty good job of keeping their hands off of Eidos Montreal and allowing them to do what they did best... Perhaps moving into his new position he saw something that made him feel that was about to change...?

In any case, it sounded like he had a real and positive role in making E-M a positive place for creative people to work. I think his departure is a bad sign for Square-Enix.

Sadly I think your right, he probably jumped ship as he didn't want to be the scape goat for the closure or whatever dumb plan the idiots at SE are upto.
Seriously those guys are idiots, they make some great games that sell well but it's not good enough? Seriously....

 

[AuronFtw]

Hopefully, Square-Enix will recognize that they need this guy and they'll bring him back and let him do his job.

...dude, it's Square Enix. I want to like them, I really do, but these are the guys that insisted on making a miniseries out of FFXIII and turning Dissidia into a rhythm game. I don't think he'll be coming back.

You mean the rhyme game that sold over 133,245 copies and holds 78 on metacritc?

FF13 got 83 on metacritic; if squeenix isn't above paying people off to give their hilariously bad linear hallway exploration simulators good scores they aren't above paying people off for their rhythm games either.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Hopefully, Square-Enix will recognize that they need this guy and they'll bring him back and let him do his job.

...dude, it's Square Enix. I want to like them, I really do, but these are the guys that insisted on making a miniseries out of FFXIII and turning Dissidia into a rhythm game. I don't think he'll be coming back.

You mean the rhyme game that sold over 133,245 copies and holds 78 on metacritc?

These were the guys that took a fresh, original, incredibly fun miniseries with decent writing and good combat that could be expanded upon in any number of prequels or ported to consoles to add even more stuff to it's already huge amount of content... and turned it into A PLOTLESS RYTHM GAME. I love Dissidia, 012 is one of my fav games, and they're not making them anymore because they thought it would be better as a DDR clone! I just don't get it! Besides, reviews and figures don't matter. Critics aren't perfect or could be bought off, and people seem to throw money at bad games whenever they see them nowadays. If freaking FFXIII got a near-perfect score, I honestly think Square's greasing a few palms.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Prove it. I?m tired people claiming that only reason a game they didn?t like got good reviews is because they were bribed. And people don?t through money at bad games they through it games they liked. If allot of people bought it then guess what? That means allot of people LIKED IT.

Just because people paid for something doesn't mean they liked it. Colonial Marines made money, but that was all preorder hype, and when people sat down and played it they realised it was OK at best and Mindjack level bad at worst. Besides, I don't hate on everything I don't like that gets good reviews. I'm not a big fan of Bioshock and I think it's heavily over-rated, but I understand why the series scored such shining reviews. But FFXIII... I legitimately don't understand why anyone liked any part of it.

Spoiler: Here's why.

*The characters are flat rehashes of older FF characters
* The combat is basically on autopilot
* The plot is incredibly convoluted and poorly told to the point where even if you check all the backstory and ancillary details you won't know what's going on most of the time
* It's so freaking linear that you could just tape the stick down
* The art direction is hideous and garish
* The mix of technology and science the world uses makes no sense
* The crafting and level-up systems were either useless or overpowered

All that, and this game was getting near perfect scores? Perfect scores? I saw one mag that gave it 120 out of 100, and Famitsu fans voted it GOTY! How? Why was it getting all that praise when it's so fundamentally broken in so many different aspects?! The only good thing the game had going for it was it's soundtrack, and you know what? They took that and improved it, along with Lightning's character arc. What in you ask? DISSIDIA! The game they're not making any more because they want to make more crap like FFXIII!